Are You Back?
by Kiwi Werewolf
Summary: Dipper gets bitten by something that makes him go all weird and crazy and animalistic. My first ever Gravity Falls story. Sorry for the bad introduction.


The day is late, the sun setting slowly in the yellow and red streaked sky, which makes the shadows of the tall, ancient trees glow with a rusty orange hue, and stretches them tort to the east, as if they are trying to escape this new world of harmless flames and embers, and slide unnoticed back into the darkness which would be the temporary undoing of their existence. The current world is one of wilderness; of untamed American forest growing unassisted over thousands of acres of land, with barely any hints of human civilization anywhere.

But there _is_ civilization here.

"Grunkle Stan, why do _I_ always have to be the one who puts up fliers really late?" Dipper Pines complains to his great-uncle, staring mournfully at the colossal pile of dead trees in his arms.

"Because I said so," Stan grunts back, scratching at the side of his stubbled jaw. "Soos is busy fixing a lightbulb or something, Wendy's gone home already, and well… do you really think it would be a good idea for _Mabel_ to do it?"

Stan and Dipper both look over at the small, brown-haired girl in the yellow kitten sweater, playing with her pig Waddles on the couch. "If I'm gonna have an epic summer romance, maybe you should too," Mabel tells Waddles, open-mouthed and in the tone of someone who just had an amazing idea.

"Point taken," Dipper sighs wearily, adjusting his blue and white hat slightly with one hand and wincing. "I'll be back soon."

* * *

**Gravity Falls First Ever Pet Competition!**

**Prizes!**

**Games!**

**Excitement for you and your pets!**

**All pets welcome, big and small!**

**Best presented pet will win a trip for you and your pet at the Oregon Dog Day Spa for a whole day of pampering and care!**

**Admission price: $5.00**

Dipper sighs, his breath frosting in front of his eyes as he puts up another one of these stupid fliers and staples it to another stupid tree. It is getting dark now, and cold, making him wish he'd worn something warmer than his trademark shorts, t-shirt and sleeveless jacket. The only good thing about this is that the more fliers he staples, the less he has to carry, and so far he is making good time, with only maybe a dozen left to go (although he had decided he was definitely keeping one for Mabel, who he knows will absolutely love going there tomorrow with Waddles).

"Can't even staple properly," he rolls his eyes as his hands shake and he feels a carpet of goosebumps cover his skinny legs. He pins another flier up against a tree and this time his aim is way off, and he ends up putting a staple right through the middle of the page, giving the smiling pretty girl on the flier a silver moustache, which he can barely even see because he vision is kind of blurred. "This isn't normal," Dipper murmurs out loud, aware now. It's never this cold in the summer of Gravity Falls. Dipper's vision is perfectly fine, and hasn't blurred since… he can't even remember the last time.

There is a noise from behind him, and Dipper screams.

It all happens so fast – the purple flash of malice, the glowing yellow eyes, the terror as it bares blurred teeth swimming in blue-ish saliva, the _pain_ as it bites him hard, over his shoulder, the surprise as it lets him go and bounds off.

"Aaarrgh," Dipper gasps weakly, lying on the cold ground that is so wet from his blood, which flows so freely and wetly down his front and back. He cries, a little, in the dark, but in a very futile way, knowing that no matter what he does, nobody will ever find him in time. It is amazing, he thinks, just how quickly a person's situation can change, and just how easily people are broken.

He has two choices, he decides: he can lie here and die alone in the dark, with no idea if he could have survived this attack or not, and give up on everything.

Or he can get up, try to find his way back to the Mystery Shack, and if he dies then at least he dies fighting.

Groaning, he picks himself up and staggers into the tree he just pinned the flier on, and rips the flier off the tree. On second thoughts, he produces a pen from his pocket, and scribbles on the back of the page,

MABEL, I'M HURT PRETTY BAD. WHATEVER HAPPENS, I LOVE YOU AND YOU ARE THE BEST SISTER I COULD EVER HAVE ASKED FOR. -DIPPER

He then puts the note in his jacket and starts walking. Even in his darkest, deadliest hour, he's thinking of Mabel.

* * *

"Something's wrong," Mabel tells Waddles, lying down on her bed in hers and Dipper's room. She's lying on her stomach, knocking her feet together, head resting on her hand, staring intently into Waddles's dull eyes.

Waddles makes a little squealing grunting noise.

"No, like something's really _really_ wrong," Mabel shakes her head, brown eyes like her brother's wide and concerned. "Like I think I'm going to _explode_ from just _wrong_ it is!"

Waddles just watches her and blinks.

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Mabel agrees halfheartedly, not actually believing her beloved pet at all but wanting to be polite. "He's probably just out there being _stupid,_ ha ha. Yeah, even though he was supposed to be back like two hours ago. Even though he was only supposed to take ten minutes tops. Even though he… AARGH!" she screams suddenly, startling Waddles, jumping up off her bed. "I GOTTA GO FIND HIM!" she screams at Waddles, hands on her head.

And then: footsteps. Coming down the hall. Mabel freezes, eyes locked with Waddles's. There's a groaning noise, the noise of someone falling on to a wall, the noise of heavy, laboured breathing.

The door to the bedroom creaks open… and there outside stands Dipper, covered in blood and mud and sweat, his eyes bloodshot and hazy, covered in scratches, crying a little, shaking all over.

"DIPPER!" Mabel wails, then runs up and hugs him tight, getting blood all over her newly knitted white sweater and not caring in the slightest. "WHAT HAPPENED?"

"Purple… blurry… cold… yellow eyes…" Dipper moans, collapsing in her arms and letting her fully hold him up. "Oh, god…" he whispers, and sobs into her shoulder. Mabel's eyes tear up a little, too, out of desperation and horror and the physical pain she feels from seeing her twin in any form of pain.

"Just… get into bed, and we'll sort everything out in the morning," Mabel decides, stepping into the leadership role far more naturally and calmly than Dipper could have ever expected. "Okay? Come on," she says, and guides him into his bed, taking his hat and jacket off, and then his shoes as he sits on the edge of the bed. She then tucks him in, whirls her jumper off and gets into her own bed with Waddles.

Dipper, exhausted, goes right off to sleep. But for Mabel, it is a long, sleepless night full of worry and constant listening for her twin's breathing. Just in case.

* * *

Mabel wakes up some time in the morning and is surprised that she even managed sleep. She looks over at Dipper's bed… and is shocked to find it is empty, and he is gone. "Dipper?" she calls in a low tone, not wanting to wake anyone else up. "Dipper?" Mabel, no longer tired, jumps out of bed and begins her search around the house for him. She eventually finds him in the bathroom, his dark brown hair even darker and dripping wet, cleaned up somewhat, minus his jacket, and applying disinfectant to a few cuts on his legs.

"Oh, hey Mabel," he says in a calm tone when she comes in. "Just cleaning myself up. Wouldn't want to get infected or anything–"

"YOU GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK!" Mabel yells at him, very loudly, looking actually quite crazy in her mussed up t-shirt and skirt and from the rusted blood still smeared on the side of her face, which Dipper's OCD streak wants to splash with water and rub off.

"Sorry," Dipper mutters, not looking very sorry at all, feeling a little weird in his moods, and very hungry too. He would kill for a steak, a nice juicy bloody one too, maybe even not in the steak form but ripped off something alive and squirming and– what the hell? Where did _that_ thought come from?

"Just promise me you'll never do this again, okay?" Mabel asks, and Dipper notices with disgust she sounds like she's talking to a small child, or a pig.

"IT WASN'T MY FAULT I GOT ATTCKED BY A GIANT MONSTER!" Dipper yells suddenly, his eyes glowing an eerie shade of yellow. Mabel shies back instantly, as if electric shocked.

"I know," she says, very quietly, but Dipper isn't finished.

"DO YOU THINK I WANTED TO GET ATTACKED BY A FREAKING CREATURE OF THE NIGHT? HUH? DO YOU THINK I _WANT_ TO GET MYSELF KILLED? DO YOU THINK I'M STUPID ENOUGH TO THINK THAT'D JUST BE A WALK IN THE PARK? NO, MABEL, THIS MAY SURPRISE YOU, BUT I'M NOT STUPID. _YOU'RE _THE STUPID ONE OUT OF US TWO. YOU KNOW," Dipper finishes, his face red, his chin flecked with spittle and yelling so loud, and his eyes yellow, yellow, yellow, "I NEVER ASKED TO BE YOUR BROTHER. NEVER DID. I NEVER EVEN _LIKED_ YOU! SO JUST GET OUT! GET THE HELL OUT! I–" Dipper's voice falters at this, and he coughs loudly, vigorously, far too heavily for someone his age to have been coughing. He bends down on his knees, and when he looks back up at Mabel, who is crying, frozen in place, staring at him like he's an animal escaped from the zoo, his eyes are back to brown. For a moment they stare at each other, Dipper just as shocked by his yellow-eyed outburst as Mabel. After a long moment of this, Dipper finally speaks again, in a much quieter voice, a little hoarse from all the yelling he just did: "Mabel, I'm so sorry…"

Mabel shakes her head, crying harder and harder, backing away from him. "No," she says, shaking her head, shoulders slumped from the emotional pain he just caused her, a part of her childish innocence obliterated forever.

"Mabel?" Dipper tries again, salty tears forming in his eyes too now, nothing really to say.

"Don't talk to me, Dipper," Mabel whispers softly, and leaves the bathroom, closing the door behind her quietly and with very gently.

Dipper's eyes flash yellow again, and he screams at her through the door, "YOU ARE SUCH A STUPID LOSER, YOU KNOW THAT? YOU'RE GOING TO GROW UP, AND HAVE NO FRIENDS, AND BE LONELY FOR ALL YOUR LIFE!" But really, it is Dipper who feel the loneliest at the moment, as his eyes fade back to brown and he curls up on the bathroom floor, sobbing.

In the middle of it, his eyes flicker back to yellow, and it is yellow they stay.

* * *

Mabel runs back up to hers and Dipper's room, almost screaming with tears in her misery, her whole world destroyed by just a few words. When she gets to her room she smashes the door shut behind her, jumps up on to her bed where Waddles is still lying stupidly, and cries heartbrokenly into her pillow. She feels empty, and hurt, and betrayed, and generally like life is more trouble than it's worth. And she knows that nobody is going to help her except Waddles, because Grunkle Stan is already out doing one of his stupid tours, and Wendy in the gift shop wouldn't care if even she could hear her, which she probably can't anyway.

"You're my only friend, Waddles," she mutters into her pig's side tearfully. Waddles looks at her with what she hopes is a sympathetic look, and lets her snuggle him. She cries like this for a long time, cries until she doesn't really have any tears left, until she's all dried out and just kind of lying on her bed with bloodshot eyes and what feels to her like an empty soul.

She hears the door creak open slightly, and fearing it is her brother, a thought which used to make her happy just thinking about but now only further depresses and scares her, she calls, "Go away! Just go away!" in a voice which is so dry and aware of its own patheticness she wonders why she bothered.

"Dude, what happened to you?" calls a familiar, friendly voice which is neither Dipper's nor Stan's. Mabel turns around and there is Soos, wearing his Mystery Shack t-shirt, with the same familiar crooked teeth, obese frame and caring heart, standing in the doorway, looking stunned and concerned.

Mabel considers not answering him, but then everything just kind of spills out. "Dipper got bitten by a monster and now he has yellow eyes and hates me and now he isn't really Dipper anymore," Mabel says, and is surprised to find she can say this and feeling nothing but stony coldness.

"Oh, dude, that's awful!" Soos says, with feeling, coming in and sitting on her bed next to her. After a second of thought, he puts a meaty arm around her. Waddles crawls up on to his lap. "Are you okay?"

"No," Mabel smoulders, "I'm not. And I'm never talking to him again. His face looks like a butt!"

"Dude, sorry for suggesting, but I something else is just making him say all that stuff," Soos tells her slowly, patting Waddles with one hand.

"What do you mean?" Mabel asks, still angry but listening now, a tiny ray of awkward hope forming somewhere deep down inside her.

"Well, if he got bit by a monster and his eyes are yellow when he yells at you, then obviously it's the monster that's making him do this, dude," Soos suggests. "Yellow eyes aren't normal, not even here."

"So… you're saying… Dipper _doesn't_ hate me?" Mabel asks, putting the pieces together in her mind, the tiny ray of hope now reaching out and colouring her soul, a bit of the Mabel she had been half an hour ago re-formed.

"Dude, you're his sister. Of course he doesn't hate you! Something making him do it. Maybe there was something in monster's spit or someth–"

"Soos! You're a genius!" Mabel yells, grabbing his shirt and shaking him excitedly, giving him a giant, metal-mouthed smile, the old Mabel back again, her optimism restored, and her love for her brother stronger than ever.

"Anytime," Soos smiles warmly, gets up, and leaves the room. As soon as he's gone, Mabel rushes over to where the book Dipper found with the '3' on it is hidden, grabs it, opens it, and flicks through.

"What'd he say? Purple, something about something being blurry, um, yellow eyes… where is it?" she makes a little bear-growl noise of frustration when she doesn't find it immediately, then instantly brightens up when she sees something that matches her description a bit. "The Weretiger. Well, there's a stupid name," she rolls her eyes, then continues on reading out loud. "Okay, 'The Weretiger is a giant purple tiger who stalks the forest of Gravity Falls'… mm-mm-mm… blah blah blah… yellow eyes… blue spit?... here we go, 'The Weretiger often prefers to simply bite its victims and infect them with a venom in its spit which turns them into yellow-eyed, irritable monsters overnight'… 'infected people will also develop an overwhelming craving to eat live, raw animals'… 'they would only be able to find a cure by witnessing something which so powerfully reminds them of their old lives that it would cause them to snap completely back into their old selves, and the venom would later be vomited out'… OH MY GOD WADDLES!" Mabel yells at her pig, who flinches slightly, "I NEED TO FIND MY BROTHER! You stay here," she tells him, throwing on some shoes and, after a thought, Dipper's sleeveless jacket, and then closing the bedroom door behind her.

She takes a deep breath, steadies herself, then walks through the house right out the front door, looking for clues as to where her brother could have gone. "Come on, come on, come on," she whines, looking all around, studying the ground and then up at the sky and then back at the house and then WHAM! "Aaargh," Mabel moans, rubbing her head, looking at the tree she just walked into. "That was silly." Looking closer at the tree, she notices that there is a flier carefully stapled to it. She blinks her eyes several times (_Sev'ral Timez_! She thinks, off-topic for a second) and then reads what it has to say.

**Gravity Falls First Ever Pet Competition!**

**Prizes!**

**Games!**

**Excitement for you and your pets!**

**All pets welcome, big and small!**

**Best presented pet will win a trip for you and your pet at the Oregon Dog Day Spa for a whole day of pampering and care!**

**Admission price: $5.00**

Mabel reads this carefully, with a sinking feeling in her heart. She remembers reading in the 3 Book before something which surfaces again. "'Infected people will also develop an overwhelming craving to eat live, raw animals'" she recites out loud. She looks at the poster again.

_All pets welcome, big and small!_

"Oh, crap," Mabel says.

* * *

The carnival is large and bright and cheery, full of colourful tents and posters and banners hung everywhere. The crowd is a colourful mixture of people (generally young females) and pets, mostly dogs, but there are some different ones: cats on leads, goldfish in clear drink bottles, rats in peoples' pockets, small turtles in icecream containers, pigs and horses and geckoes and snakes… it really is a great turnout. There are even a few people dressed as animals – a dog and a cat which walk around together giving out hugs and dancing, and one solitary creature which may have been a bear a long time ago but is now so old and ragged and worn it resembles something closer to a piece of carpet.

Dipper steps out into the middle of this, his thoughts scattered, but his mind mostly focussed on The Killfeed, as he is mentally calling it. It was so easy getting past the people at the gate, but now it is proving to be a little harder actually moving around the place. Every animal he sees he instinctively wants to rip apart and devour, but he knows he has to play it cool. Hunt like a tiger. Plan plan plan.

He sees a young girl with a chiwawa puppy near the back of the carnival, in a very isolate area where there is absolutely no one around, and decides to pick her as his first victim. The young girl is chubby, with sun-streaked blonde hair, freckles and hazelnut eyes. She wears a grey and pink hoodie and jeans, and looks to be about seven or eight. Her dog is a vague tan colour, with a dog that looks too big for its body, and a pink studded collar which looks like it cost more than the dog.

"Hey," Dipper says to the girl, awkwardly, finding it hard to focus on her and not just tear the dog away and run. "Nice dog."

"Yeah, thanks," the girl says. "Her name is Fifi. I just got her last week."

"Well, she's adorable," Dipper says, trying to smile and struggling, fighting an eternal battle with himself in his head.

"Hey, I gotta ask, why do you have those yellow contact lenses?" the girl tilts her head and frowns. "Is it something to do with your eyes? I know someone who has to have these blue glasses otherwise he can't really read and goes all weird, and–"

"Yeah, I have a vision problem," Dipper smiles, relieved at the excuse for his eye colour. "Hey, can I hold your dog? She's so cute," he adds, coughing once, hard, into the side of his arm, swinging back and forth on his heels, feeling strangely naked without the black sleeveless jacket he used to wear when he was weak.

"Uh, sure I guess," the girl shrugs, and gestures for him to pick her up. "Be careful though, because she doesn't really like strangers and sometimes she bites like, just a little."

Dipper doesn't bother thanking her. He picks the dog up in his arms, which are shaking from anticipation, licks his lips with his too-dry tongue, and opens his mouth to take a huge bite.

"DIPPER! STOP!" a voice commands from behind him, and Dipper turns, angrily, to see a brown haired, brown eyed girl covered in mud and with a very dried out, crusty blood smear on one side of her face. And she has the nerve the wear Dipper's jacket! Dipper would remember that jacket anywhere! And now it's on her! This mystery girl! Actually, she seems a little familiar to Dipper, but he can't remember where. "Leave the dog alone, Dipper!" the girl yells, with determination. Before he can respond, she comes up, snatches the dog out of his arms, and gives it back to the little girl. "You should be more careful who you give your dog to," she tells her stiffly, before turning back to Dipper.

"Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?" Dipper asks her, trembling with fury, choosing her as a possible target. It takes all of his free will not to just lunge at her. How dare she interrupt The Killfeed? Who did she think she was?

"You really don't know, do you?" the girl asks, sadly and with more than a little disgust.

This is too much for Dipper. He lets out a strangled animal sound and tackles her down on to the ground, trying to hit her somewhere vital. However, she is stronger than he anticipated, and manages to get on top of him.

"Don't you remember anything?" the girl cries, her hair dangling in his face. Dipper growls and makes a wild swipe for her face. "You don't remember me or Grunkle Stan or Soos or… Wendy? Do you remember Wendy?"

"Killfeed!" Dipper shrieks, or at least that's what Mabel thinks he said anyway. Dipper manages to get on top of Mabel and thuds a fist down on to the ground where her head was a second before. Mabel hits his face and grabs his cheek, digging her nails in, trying to get on top again. Dipper screams and headbutts her nose, which really hurts and fogs up her vision awfully.

"Dipper, stop!" Mabel yells. "Dipper, please?" she gets on top and tries to hold his arms down but he is wild, crazy. "Dipper!"

And suddenly it is over, and Dipper has thrown her to the side and is getting up, eyes still yellow and inhuman, but now covered in mud and with a pink, lightly bleeding cheek. Mabel, breathing heavily, also gets up, hurt and scared but determined not to lose her twin.

"Why do you keep fighting?" Dipper snarls at her. "Just give up or I'll kill you! And give me back my jacket!"

Defensive, Mabel sinks her hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. They are empty apart from a small piece of paper. Frowning, Mabel pulls the piece of paper out of the pocket.

"What's this?" she asks, hoping it is instructions of some kind, or just anything that could help, but her heart sinks when she sees it is just another flier for this stupid pet competition.

She looks up just in time to see Dipper's eyes flicker from yellow to brown to yellow again, all in a very short time span. "Dipper?" she asks.

"Read the back," Dipper says, completely torn in half from the two overwhelming urges in his body. It takes everything inside him that he has ever had to speak these words, and the effort and urgency shows in his tone.

Mabel turns it over, and there, in very messy handwriting and obviously written on a bad surface but so clearly and heartbreakingly in her brother's handwriting, is a note. "Mabel," she starts to read, and tears up a little as she continues reading, "I'm hurt pretty bad. Whatever happens, I love you and…" Mabel stops to clear her throat, because it has suddenly become so hard to talk, "And… you are the best sister I could ever have asked for. Dipper."

She looks up, and his time his eyes are brown, and brown they stay.

"I wrote that when I thought I was about to die, you know," Dipper says softly, tears flowing freely but he doesn't seem to notice. "I wrote it because… well, I didn't know what was going to happen, so then if anything _did_ happen… um, you would know."

"Dipper?" Mabel asks slowly, cautiously, crying just as hard as he is, choosing her words as carefully as possible.

"Yeah, Mabel?"

"Are you back?"

Dipper Pines looks at her with his brown, brown eyes which are so tearful and damp and have seen so much and been through so much but have never lost sight of Mabel – not really.

He says, "Yeah, I'm back." And he smiles so she smiles back.

**AN:**

**Well, how was that? I know it wasn't great, but keep in mind it was started as a writer's block deterrent (which is how most of my stories are, come to think). If it was OOC, or too slow, or too fast, boring, unrealistic, whatever, you are free to tell me that. I think this is one of the happiest endings I've ever given a story, which was weird to write.**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! :D**


End file.
